Our world is awash in video. Anyone toting a smartphone or a tablet can capture the momentous and the mundane with the swipe of a finger. And nowadays, it only takes a second swipe to broadcast it all in real time via social media.

Yet in a landscape of infinite choices, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” endures as a primetime institution that will celebrate its landmark 600th episode on Jan. 15.

Rights - ABC - Smorgasbord - Video - Era

By all rights, ABC’s hourlong smorgasbord of user-generated video should be outmoded in an era in which 300 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. But therein lies the rub. Who can possibly sort through such volume?

Richard & Mildred Loving led the struggle in the courts, while Hollywood helped change hearts and minds.

AFV - Exec - Producers - Vin - Di

That’s where “AFV” exec producers Vin Di Bona and Michele Nasraway and their commando team of clip-screeners and producers come in. They do the heavy sifting through 3,500 to 5,000 clips uploaded weekly to the AFV website. All we have to do is tune at 7 p.m. on Sundays (or digitally on our own timetables) to enjoy the finest selection of groin shots, projectiles gone awry, trampoline disasters, cute kids, and pesky pets that this country has to offer.

“It’s all about curation,” says Di Bona. The veteran producer has been at the helm of “AFV” since its inception as a special in 1989 adapted from a Japanese TV format. “We create this show every week to give a family audience the sense of security in watching the show. We know how hard it is for parents to control the media and television influences on young children. There are a multitude of categories of clips you run across when you’re on YouTube or Facebook, and a lot of them are not funny. That’s where the big appreciation for our...